- casualSTEM
- Posts
- Oil Spill Innovation: How Human Hair is Making Waves in Environmental Protection
Oil Spill Innovation: How Human Hair is Making Waves in Environmental Protection
STEM Snacks
Steve Burgess
May 16, 2024
casualSTEM delivers brief and informative summaries of the latest science news every Saturday. Full of jokes, silly polls, and a cartoon!
Get the weekly email that explains science in sweatpants. Stay smart for free.
image by Steve Burgess x ChatGPT
Hair Spill
Human hair is really good at attracting oil, which is great! MatterOfTrust, a non-profit, cleans oil spills using hair mats.
~1 lb. hair = 2’ x 2’ x 2.5” hair mat
Each mat soaks up 1.5 gallons of oil
Sourced from hair salons
Hair mats aided spill clean up in the Galápagos Islands and inventory is ready to soak up future disasters. Roughly half of all mats are donated to cleanup volunteers with the rest being sold to government orgs such as the US Department of Defense. Suddenly “mop of hair” is a compliment.
Source: MatterOfTrust
ai (yai yai)
ChatGPT tries stand-up comedy. How do you think it did?
Imagine telling your hairdresser you want a cut that’s good for an oil spill. ‘So, just a light clean-up around the edges then?
Last week’s science in sweatpants
Catch-up here: 🔬Ultra Sip | Hive BEEhavior | Brain Slice
Reply